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Article: Immigrants bring practice of female circumcision to Europe.
- Article from:
- Chicago Tribune (Chicago, IL)
- Article date:
- June 4, 2002
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2002 Chicago Tribune. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Byline: Tom Hundley
ROME _ As a child growing up in Somalia, Abshira Al-Gadi, a 36-year-old health care worker, remembers how worried she was before her gudniin, the female circumcision rite that is common in many parts of Africa.
"But my mother said, `Don't be afraid, do it. All the young girls do it,'" she recalled.
In rural Somalia, the cutting away of all or part of a girl's clitoris is often done without any anesthetic, and in many cases thorns are used to close the wound. Al-Gadi was luckier. Her family lived in the city, so the procedure was performed by a nurse who used a local anesthetic and closed the incision by stitching it with ...